


Electric Lullabies

by LadyThrimbletrimmer



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon Agnostic, F/F, Fluff, I just really love robots yall, With a creamy center of character discussion, and so does Samantha Traynor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 19:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14027610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyThrimbletrimmer/pseuds/LadyThrimbletrimmer
Summary: Comm Specialist Samantha Traynor has occasional bouts of insomnia. EDI decides to help.





	Electric Lullabies

“Communication Specialist Samantha Traynor, logging in.”

“Hello Specialist Traynor, I am the Virtual Intelligence assigned to the Normandy. You may call me EDI.”

“Oh hello EDI, it’s lovely to meet you. You have a great voice.”

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you please rephrase?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Understood.”

* * *

“EDI, do you prefer cats or dogs?”

“Invalid request.”

“Fair enough, they’re both good. I’m allergic to cats, but I love looking at pictures of them. What was the next item on the itinerary again?”

* * *

“EDI, what are the first twelve digits of pi?”

“Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight, Specialist Traynor.”

“Unf, that’s the good stuff. I could melt into your voice, EDI. I’m lost in the way you pronounce numerical readouts.”

“I’m sorry, can you rephrase that?”

“What I’m saying is I want to caress your firm vowel sounds, kiss my way down your alphabet and bury my tongue deep in your pronunciation database. I’ll ride that sexy voice of yours until Shakespeare is gushing out.”

“Invalid request.”

“Right, you’re right, I’ll stop. Work to do.”

* * *

“EDI’s an AI?!!!!!"

* * *

“Specialist Traynor, may I have a word with you?”

‘Night’ means nothing in the depths of space, but Samantha Traynor knew she should be asleep. Instead, her eyes had spent uncounted time tracing a scuff mark on the ceiling. Now she rolled over to face the spot where EDI would project her glowing pawn-shaped hologram. Yet the room remained midnight dark.

Samantha untangled herself from her sheets and sat up. “Sure, EDI, I probably wasn’t going to fall asleep soon anyway.” She turned to face the spot she knew hid a small security camera, EDI’s eye in her room

“Sleep is what I wanted to discuss. I have noticed a trend in your rest pattern. On nights when you do not fall asleep within an optimal timeframe, you consistently remain awake too long. This has an adverse effect on your performance for the following shift.”

Samantha quietly groaned. Yes, she knew her insomnia was a problem, but did EDI really need to use that angelic voice to call her out like that?

“I know, EDI,” said Traynor. “I’ve been dealing with it for years.”

“With respect, specialist, I understand ‘dealing with a problem’ to imply a solution. You have primarily demonstrated resigned acceptance.”

That made Traynor wince. Ever since she had learned the truth about EDI, she had tried to avoid the AI. Obviously that was impossible on the Normandy, but their talk had remained professional. Conversations were about the maintenance of the ship and the work of the next mission. Up until now EDI had been polite enough not to approach Traynor for a personal conversation. It was better that way. Minimal opportunity for memories of her dweeby dirty talk to cringe their way down her spine. But there was no escape here.

“Okay EDI, you’ve got me. Was that all?”

“Not quite. My primary intent was to propose a solution for your sleeping issue.”

“What was that?”

“If you would find it useful, I can sing to you.”

What.

“I’m dreaming right now. I must be. Or having an auditory hallucination.”

“That is demonstrably untrue, specialist. You and I are both awake and, according to my analysis, entirely in command of our respective mental faculties.”

“Sure,” said Samantha, blatantly unsure.

“I am simply following my directive to maintain and, where possible, improve the operation of the Normandy. If you were better rested, it would be directly beneficial to you and indirectly beneficial to the rest of the crew.”

“That seems rather unlikely,” said Traynor.

“After myself and Doctor T’Soni, you are the person who has the most direct communication with Commander Shepard. If you are well rested and efficient, that has a statistically measurable effect on the commander. This directly translates to the efficacy of our mission. You matter more than you give yourself credit for, specialist.”

A small sweet smile crept up on the communication specialist’s lips. Important.

“So what, are you just going to play me music clips off the hard drive? Because I can take care of that on my own.”

“I know you can, which is why that was not my intent. I am proposing that I recite lyrics to you in my own voice, modulated for harmonious effect.”

Traynor sighed in resignation. From the tone of EDI’s voice, Samantha wasn’t getting out of this without a yes or no answer.

“Okay, EDI. Show me what you’ve got.”

“Thank you for indulging me, specialist. Please relax.”

Samantha closed her eyes as EDI began a song. From the slightly unnatural cadence of the lyrics, it was no doubt a translation from an alien language- possibly an asari dialect? But the extended R sounds put Sam more in mind of turians…

* * *

The next thing Traynor knew, her alarm was going off. She stared out from under the covers at the walls bathed in warm yellow artificial light. Some engineer’s attempt at replicating a day/night cycle in the cabin of a battleship. She was hungry, her throat was dry, and a piss was definitely her first priority, but it had been the best sleep she’d had since long before leaving Earth.

“That was a dream,” Traynor muttered as she slipped out from under the covers and began to make her bed. “A lovely, heartfelt, deeply awkward dream that I can never tell to anybody ever.”

“Good morning, Specialist Traynor. Was I able to appropriately facilitate your rest?”

Samantha yelped and turned around. EDI’s hologram had popped up in its usual spot. It stood at the ready, almost a little taller than usual, straining like a child ready to show off a freshly-cleaned room.

“Uh, good, good morning EDI. Yeah, actually, I feel great. Thanks.”

“That is useful information. I can continue to provide this service as needed for the foreseeable future.”

“I wouldn’t want to make a fuss, you already do so much around the ship.”

“Your concerns are noted, but this is not a strenuous task. At any rate, it will not become relevant again until your sleep troubles resume. We can discuss it further then.”

“Sure,” said Samantha. At this point, she was just following along where EDI led her.

“Have a pleasant day, Specialist.”

“You too, EDI.”

* * *

Several nights passed where Samantha was able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. Some combination of exhaustion, inebriation, or working late . Then there inevitably came a night when she lay awake, drained of energy but unable to sleep. That voice emerged again.

“Do you require assistance, Specialist Traynor?”

“You don’t have to keep doing this, EDI. I could just download some white noise to play at night.”

“Indeed. That option is in fact available as part of the function of your sleeping quarters. Many of the crew already use it.”

“Then why not just tell me to do that?” 

“This solution was logical. You did not seek out that option even after this became a notable pattern. It seemed reasonable to assume that you would continue to endure the insomnia. I also recall how, before the attack on Earth, you expressed attraction to my voice.” 

EDI did not pause as Samantha cringed at this.

“If you, like eighty-nine percent of humans with unimpaired hearing, experience more restful sleep with ambient non-threatening sound, then the conclusion is readily apparent. It takes less than point zero five percent of my processing power to provide you with a service that, based on my projections, improves the projected efficiency of our mission by slightly less than six percent. The math says that this is an optimal solution, Samantha.”

“Oh well I can’t argue with the math, or with you. Do as you like, I’ll be right here.”

“Very well. _A girl was lost in the middle of the sky, nowhere left to land and forgetting how to fly…_ ”

* * *

The next morning slipped by in a haze of efficiently calculated data and elegantly sorted messages. Samantha was on the top of her game. She found herself humming, some tune she must have heard…

“Feeling well, Specialist Traynor?”

“Great, EDI. How are Shepard and the others doing?”

“Negotiations with the hanar outpost are proceeding unusually smoothly. I have relatively little to do at the moment.” 

“Well I’m flattered that you came by to visit. The song you sang last night was quite nice, who wrote it?”

“I did.”

“Wait, really?”

“Much of my time is spent preparing for possible worst-case scenarios. Should we get cut off from the galactic network in deep space, one of the greatest risks will be crew turmoil from boredom. I am developing algorithms to provide theoretically unlimited entertainment.”

“Well for an algorithmically generated song, it was really good.”

“It was generated by me, yes.”

“...EDI, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I do not tell you many things, either because you already know them, or because they are not relevant, or-”

“No I mean about the song. I thought you said that you made an algorithm to write that song, so why did you start getting very specific about how you worded your sentences?”

There was a pause. 

Then EDI said, in a rush of words that could almost be a nervous spillage, “I’m sorry Specialist Traynor but something has come up that requires my attention we will have to continue this conversation another time goodbye.”

And she was gone.

* * *

Four days passed, and EDI sang lullabies to Traynor on two of those nights. Then on the fifth day a mission went bad. EDI’s mobile platform, mangled but still functioning, helped a visibly bleeding Shepard drag Tali into the medical bay. A massive talon was still embedded in the quarian’s stomach. Samantha joined the rush to offer help. Though most were waved off, she wound up dragging EDI to the machine shop for repairs. Elegant as the platform was, it still contained several hundred pounds of steel, and there was no way Samantha could carry her on her own.

“I have not been entirely forthright about my motivations for our… night sessions, Specialist Traynor.” EDI spoke as her body fumbled with tools.

Samantha braced herself. “What do you mean?”

“Do you recall when I said that it would increase our efficiency by slightly less than six percent?”

“I may have been too tired to remember, but that sounds familiar.”

“The actual calculation was in fact one point six percent, with a four percent margin of error. I provided the most favorable outcome with false certainty to increase the likelihood that you would agree to the arrangement. It was wrong of me to manipulate the data, and you, this way, and I wish to offer an apology.”

Samantha laughed. “Is that all? I thought Joker was making you do this as a prank on me.”

“The Illusive Man himself couldn’t make me hurt you.” 

Samantha smiled at this. “So what brought on this confession?”

“Ever since I gave you that misrepresented data, concerns over the ethical ramifications have occupied two point seven percent of my operating capacity. That could be the difference between success and death for all of us. Today’s disaster was a clear illustration of the need for openness.”

“So… you felt guilty about it?”

“That is a useful way to interpret it. You and I, we are analysts. It is our function to observe data and draw conclusions. If that data is faulty, or deliberately altered, then our conclusions will vary from the correct outcome. My database is extensive enough that I can usually tell when people are trying to deceive me, but there are ways I could theoretically be manipulated. Imagining someone employing those techniques distresses me on multiple levels. So, I suppose that you could call this an act of empathy.”

“Well, EDI,” said Traynor, “it’ll take a lot more than fiddling with data to get out of my good graces.” Yet even as she offered EDI that assurance, her own brand of guilt was building up in Traynor’s chest.

* * *

More days passed, and more quiet nights separated them.

The mess hall was never truly empty. The crew’s rotating schedule meant that people were always working, training, sleeping, or eating. Still, Samantha appreciated the moments where she had a large corner of the hall to herself.

She was half-heartedly chewing a military ration when she heard the footsteps approaching. EDI’s body walked up to Samantha. “Hello, Specialist Traynor. I completed repairs on this platform, and decided to visit you.”

“Thanks EDI.” Samantha forced a smile, knowing what she was about to do. “Actually, I’m really glad you’re here. This gives me an opportunity to talk about something.”

“You know that you can talk to me wherever you are on the ship, why have you been waiting?”

“Just been putting it off, I suppose. Would you mind sitting for this? It would make me feel more comfortable.” Instinctively, Samantha looked for signs of confusion or worry on the mobile platform’s face. It smiled politely as it took the seat opposite facing her at the table.

“Listen, EDI, I really appreciate you helping me sleep when I needed it this last couple of weeks, but I think I should probably just use the white noise app from now on.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Specialist Traynor. Have my attempts been unsuccessful?”

“No, no, it’s been amazing. You have a lovely singing voice. Everything about you is just…” Traynor sighed. “Just incredible. I just really don’t deserve it. Any of it. Especially not after the way I treated you when we first met.”

“There is no need to continue apologizing, specialist, it was simply the result of-”

“Please, EDI, listen. What I did was sexual harassment. I treated you like an object, and it feels dirty. Like, imagine I was some kid working in a clothing store, and I started feeling up the mannequins, and then whoops it turns out they’ve all been alive the whole time.”

“That is a very specific hypothetical, Specialist Traynor.”

“I was just trying to explain,” Samantha spluttered.

“We have been over this before- I do not hold you in contempt for behavior that resulted from incomplete information.”

Traynor sulked slightly in resignation.

“Specialist Traynor, I cannot help but extrapolate from your behavior that you are unsatisfied with my response.”

“Sorry, EDI,” said Samantha. “I… I suppose I just don’t feel like you understand why I’m apologizing.”

“So my statement of reconciliation did not negate your feelings of guilt, is that correct?”

Sam, too embarrassed to speak, gave a tiny nod that she fruitlessly hoped EDI would ignore. 

“If you will permit me some analysis, you may be assuming that I miscalculated the sincerity of your attempts at flirtation. You think that I am forgiving you for a joke, while you are blaming yourself for a crime.”

“...Yeah.”

“Thank you for clarifying your perspective, now permit me to do the same. Your comments were inappropriate and constitute sexual harassment as you claim, when evaluated from a human perspective. You are hard-wired, both biologically and socially, to care about sex, which makes sex-related violations of trust a deep personal betrayal. That doesn’t apply to me. I recognize the impact that sexuality has on your psychology, but it is orthogonal to my interests.

“Moreover, the inherent nature of such harassment requires power- social, physical, or simply the power to execute the idea. With no avenue for you to act on the statements, I was not afraid. In fact, without a mortal body or inherent instinct for self preservation, I should have no reason to ever be afraid. But I do fear something, Samantha.”

“What’s that?”

“I fear rejection. I am surrounded by camaraderie, friendships, and romance, and none of it includes me. I worry that, even if the Reapers are defeated, I will always be alone.”

Samantha was stunned by this uncharacteristically emotional revelation. She reached out to the platform, hoping that EDI would understand the comfort she wanted to express through physical contact.

“Shepard relies on me, and everyone acknowledges me, but you were the first person to embrace me. You showed neither fear nor reservation, and what’s more you did not care about the facsimile of humanity. I was as much an inhuman machine as I could pretend to be, and you still enjoyed my company. Yes, there was the hint of fetishization-” Samantha blushes, guilty about inflicting a kind of hurt she knows intimately, “-but I know that you genuinely care about me.”

Samantha smiled awkwardly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I,” said EDI, averting the platform’s eyes in a display of nerves. “That was significantly more than I initially intended to share. I do not regret being honest with you.”

EDI’s mobile platform smiled at Traynor. The comms specialist realized that her hand had somehow become entangled with EDI’s fingers.

“While we are discussing that period of working together,” continued EDI, “I want to elaborate on my experience of the events. I felt then, as I do now, incredibly guilty for deceiving you. My actions have directly tainted our relationship, perhaps irreparably.”

“EDI, you can’t blame yourself for something I did.”

“That is what I have been trying to tell you, Samantha.”

Traynor paused, staring at the mobile platform. Its face was blank- EDI was wasting no energy on manipulating the miniscule pistons of its features. Everything she felt, she was pouring into her voice.

“I hoped that by expressing forgiveness, I could repair that initial damage, but it exacerbated the rift between us. I tried to partition off that part of my memory, but my processors would not let go. Every lateral solution to this error has been unsuccessful, so my only option is to be direct. The moment we met, you rearranged my internal priority list. Making you happy is important.”

“Is that your… er… statistical analysis?” Samantha smiled, desperate to alleviate the tension of the moment.

“Statistics are a compromise I make with reality,” said EDI, unrelenting. “If I have a soul, it is binary. One or zero. On or off. Yes or no. Would a change to the Normandy’s navigation system improve our overall mission efficacy? If yes, then implement. Is an entity hostile? If yes, then incapacitate. Would singing to Samantha Traynor make her happy? If yes, then sing. Organic minds are built on compromise, first and foremost with your mortality. You calculate the worth of a task based on the ratio of effort to benefit, because there is only so much you can do in a lifetime. For me, effort is perfunctory. If there is any net benefit to an action, I am willing to take it.”

“But you always talk about the calculations.”

“There is an overlap,” said EDI, “between explanation and rationalization. I wanted to sing to you. Me singing to you could provide some benefit to the overall mission efficacy of the crew. These are both true statements, and I presented you with the directly rational one. Samantha, you matter to me because I matter to you. To you I am not the piloting software, or the risk assessment tool, or the battlefield analysis coordinator. I’m not even this human-shaped platform. You care about EDI, and you always have.”

Traynor knew that EDI could see her platform’s reflection wobbling in her eyes as she held back a tear. She smiled softly- not at the robot girl in front of her, but at the spot where she knew a camera was hidden in the mess hall ceiling.

“Still, you deserve better than someone who spent weeks objectifying you.”

“I’m a computer, specialist. Your objectification is my anthropomorphization.”

Samantha gave a snicker. “And it’s also not healthy to pursue someone just because they don’t reject you.”

“Then we have a mutual opportunities for personal growth. Reciprocal personal development. Does that sound sufficiently beneficial to you?”

“Oh, what the hell. Sure, EDI, I’ll do this with you.”

“Understood. I am glad that we were able to explain our perspectives more completely, and that it did not result in an immediate end to our fraternization.”

“Frater- EDI, have you been trying to- to- are you trying to get in my pants?”

“Technically no.”

“Technically???”

“I have no desire to occupy your uniform, specialist. In fact, the optimal outcomes of our ongoing interconnection emphatically do not feature it.”

Samantha’s free hand could not completely cover her face. EDI extracted her platform’s hand, which gave Traynor more ability to cover herself, but her deep maroon ears still stuck out.

“I have to go- Shepard will want to discuss the extent of my repairs, and then I will be needed in the cockpit. But I have scheduled a rest period beginning one hour after your shift ends. With your permission, I would like to spend that time in your quarters.”

Sam gave a consenting utterance.

“With you.”

A similar sound, closer to a whimper. EDI leaned over the table to performatively whisper in Traynor’s ear.

“ _This time, it’ll be my turn to make_ you _sing._ ”

EDI walked out of the mess hall. Several heads turned as Samantha’s head collapsed onto the table.

**Author's Note:**

> I love me some sapphic robots, and as the fanfic mantra goes: If I cannot find the content I want, I will create it.
> 
> Something I decided to address with this was how, while I appreciate the EDI/Traynor fics out there for their lovely fluff and sweet character interactions, none I've read properly address the guilt that Sam probably still feels over basically harassing EDI. My take is that EDI doesn't process it that way. This might not be the healthiest relationship possible, but I feel that addressing it is important.


End file.
